One of the discussions during the face to face meeting the other day
concerned elected officials' use of social media. Many western
legislators now routinely tweet from the floor of their house. We
discussed whether such public statements should or should not be part of
the public record - probably above our pay grades - but suppose they, or
anyone, wanted to archive their Tweets and other social media: how would
they do it?
But the news about Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir having her Twitter
account forced open by the US courts raised another issue in my mind. In
Britain, MPs in the House of Commons are protected under something
called Parliamentary Privilege which means they can say what they like
without fear of prosecution for slander/defamation (or anything else).
That may be a legal rather than a tech matter, but, *if* we do look at
this issue (and I would find it fascinating personally), then it's the
kind of thing we might have to bear in mind.
What I actually have in mind for this group, potentially, is a best
practices doc that talks about archiving of social media updates and
tries to distil common points from the various codes of conduct
springing up in parliaments around the world.
Just ruminating...
Phil.
[1]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/11/us-verdict-privacy-wikileaks-twitter
--
Phil Archer
W3C eGovernment
http://www.w3.org/egov/http://philarcher.org
@philarcher1